The racialized celebrity other in perfume advertisements

Despite significant scholarship on the semiotics and ideology of perfume advertising, its racialized nature is underexamined. This is surprising given perfume-ad characteristics that incentivize racialized representations, especially ads using celebrities, and racist constructions of smell and scent. Using critical advertising studies, sensory studies, and bell hooks’ concept of the racialized Other, this article argues that perfume ads are markedly racialized. The racial semiotics of 10 print ads—five with BIPOC celebrities and five with White—are critiqued, with BIPOC celebrities essentialized as inherently exotic, wild, and primitively sexual, while White celebrities symbolize elegance, classic beauty, and uniqueness.